Thread: 3.5/4.0 Speculation & Discussion (Spoilers)

Originally Posted by Theodric

I could see that happening and it reminds me of a particular plot point in FF7. Shinra were antagonists for much of the game's vast plot and despite the organisations Mako Reactors literally bleeding the planet of vital energy it was a Shinra weapon that proved powerful enough to breach the barrier blocking access to Sephiroth's lair. In short, without Shinra the main party and everybody on the planet would have been screwed. Interestingly enough once Sephiroth was defeated Advent Children and other 'expanded universe' content pretty much had Shinra turn itself around and become something of a 'protector of the planet' - mostly because it was the wise and pragmatic approach from a business perspective.

So I'm hoping we'll see similar scenarios play out where Garlemald is concerned - they've got access to some very powerful technology after all and it'd be pretty cool to see it in action and used to destroy something that is a threat to both Garlemald and the Warrior of Light. We sort of saw this already when Gaius used Ultima to consume Garuda, Ifrit and Titan. Though the reasoning wasn't exactly pure.

Was it not a Shinra program that produced Sephiroth, and in doing so lead to everything going wrong in the first place? I could be mistaken, it has been a very long time.

Originally Posted by Alacran

Was it not a Shinra program that produced Sephiroth, and in doing so lead to everything going wrong in the first place? I could be mistaken, it has been a very long time.

Jenova is technically the root cause of much of setting's darker events. Shinra served as a secondary antagonist - and whilst Shinra may not be the best example I was referring more to the fact that Final Fantasy games haven't avoided having antagonists serve as as the main foil for other antagonists that turn out to be the true 'big bad'.

Which is exactly what happened with Shinra in FFVII. It happened with Gabranth in FFXII. It happened with Beatrix in FFIX. It happened with Sydney in Vagrant Story. (Not technically a Final Fantasy game but it takes place in Ivalice so, eh...)

Originally Posted by Alacran

Was it not a Shinra program that produced Sephiroth, and in doing so lead to everything going wrong in the first place? I could be mistaken, it has been a very long time.

Correct! Spoilers for a 20-odd year old game (and its prequel) to follow

The Jenova Project started when Shinra mistakenly tought Jenova was an Ancient and so several of their scientists individually started experimenting. Gast was the one who mistakenly labeled Jenova an Ancient, while Hojo and Hollander started injecting her cells into whatever the hell they had near. Hojo's Project S eventually resulted in Sephiroth which, including his upbringing in Shinra which left him with GIGANTING mommy and daddy issues, resulted in the maniacal supersoldier we know and love this day. Project S eventually gave rise to the SOLDIER project and the rest is, well, video game history.How much Shinra knew about Project G and Project S is up in the air although it does seem the higher ups had more than a passing knowledge about what went on in them.

In short, Shinra's much closer to a villainous Tony Stark in Age of Ultron, they're not so much saving the world but more like cleaning up their own mess.

Originally Posted by Fenral

-snip-

Great points. Honestly it's rare for a character to be completely lacking in justifications for their actions. Kefka is horrible, yes, but he was literally driven mad as a result of a failed project. Charibert was - for the most part - a bad apple who enjoyed torturing people. Yet he likely would not have been promoted into a high position had it not been for Nidhogg's war.

In Rufus's defence though, he does actually seem somewhat remorseful in Advent Children.

As for Zenos, I am kind of hoping for basically a Sociopath who has been raised to believe himself above everyone else and that Garlean superiority the natural order. Maybe throw in a bit of sadism and you have yourself a truly vile villain who takes what he wants and does what he wants because he feels its his right and has zero empathy for others.

Honestly I either expect Zenos or the Emperor to die in Stormblood. Maybe both. I feel very confident we are going to Garlemald in 5.0 and I think with the heir to the imperial throne an possibly his father getting involved in the events you have the setting for creating a power vacuum that would lead to a struggle for the throne.

Originally Posted by Cilia

Even if they limited their brutality to those same people who had abused them, it's little more than revenge when you get down to it, and in case you weren't paying attention during 3.0 - 3.3, revenge is bad. So, if you go seeking revenge, then you're bad, mmkay?

I agree with Belhi: I didn't see the message of 3.0 - 3.3 being this at all. It didn't seem to be saying that vengeance is bad, but rather how you choose to pursue your vengeance determines whether you're bad or not. We were presented with at least two characters utterly devoted to vengeance: Nidhogg and Estinien. Estinien was presented as a very sympathetic character, and Nidhogg as a villain.

Nidhogg wasn't a villain because he wanted vengeance - he was a villain because he became a complete monster in pursuit of that vengeance. Nidhogg decided to torture an entire nation of people for centuries due to the actions of a few. Why? Because after succeeding in his vengeance on those few, he decided that he was still angry and so found someone else to pick on. This is what made him a monster, and why he needed to be put down.

Estinien, on the other hand, while just as obsessed with revenge, reserved that rancor solely for the individual responsible, Nidhogg himself. Once Nidhogg was dead his revenge was over; he didn't try to find some new target for his rage. In fact, he had to deal with the fact that he'd succeeded in his life's goal, and had never really planned what to do beyond that. Estinien was very vengeance-motivated, to be sure, but he was never really portrayed as bad.

Honestly, I didn't feel like Heavensward even HAD an underlying message. It was merely a story about a very unfortunate situation, in which many people reacted in unfortunate ways to unfortunate circumstances. The fault for all this lay with so many people both living and dead that pointing fingers was a fruitless endeavor, and the thing that nearly everyone wanted more than anything else was for it all just to end, one way or another. That was what the WoL accomplished, finally introducing change in a place that had been static for a very, very long time.